Under the Weather
by signelchan
Summary: Kaede goes against Shuichi's wishes and helps him out while he's sick.


Unless previously discussed, Kaede's route home after piano practice usually was a direct one, because her sessions were later in the evening and she would rather not have been out by herself if it could be helped. But that day she knew she had places to stop on her way, in order to ensure that she wasn't going to have to go out again once she'd already gotten comfortable for the night. There was a bit of panic in her step as she browsed the aisles at the drugstore she typically passed, not sure what she needed to buy before she headed home, and after she'd finally made her decisions there she stopped by a little café to pick up some already-cooked soup as to not need to make it herself. With everything she assumed she needed in her hands she finally went back to her house, barely able to unlock the door without needing to set anything down.

Once the door was opened a hair she could hear the ambient sound of a humidifier in the main room, accompanied with the wheezing breaths of the person she currently had laying on her couch. Thanking the stars above that she wasn't hear the hacking cough she'd been enduring listening to for days, she pushed the door open further and slid inside, heading right to the kitchen to set her purchases down so that there was no further risk of her dropping them. "I know you said I shouldn't worry about you with this sickness, but I might've decided that I was going to help you anyway," she called out, as she rummaged through the bag from the drugstore, trying to decide which of the several over-the-counter medicines to offer first. "You just didn't sound like you were getting any better and I didn't want to keep hearing you suffer."

All she got in response was a groan, followed immediately with the cough she'd been so glad not to hear right away. "Stay quiet out there, it's not good if you keep making yourself do that!" Deciding on a cough syrup as her initial offering, Kaede put everything else back in the bag and headed back towards the couch, where there was a blanketed mass laying curled up on it, the humidifier right at its supposed head. "I'm so sorry that I went against your wishes, Shuichi, but I have to do what's best for you."

"N-no, I understand," he replied, uncurling only to ball back up when another cough wracked his body, his face peeking out from the blankets once he'd calmed back down, colored as incredibly pale minus his reddened cheeks from the strain of the coughing. "I'm really fine though, you didn't need to start worrying now."

"I've been worrying since you got sick, what are you talking about?" It was true that Kaede hadn't wanted to get involved because Shuichi insisted he didn't need her help, but once he'd been sick for nearly a week with no sign of anything relenting she felt like she couldn't keep dragging her feet on helping him. "Sometimes you've just got to step in and do the right thing, and if I have to pick between an alive boyfriend or a dead one, I'm picking keeping him alive."

"This isn't going to kill me," he retorted, before coughing for what felt like half a minute sustained, something that made her stomach lurch to hear. She shouldn't have ever let him get to this point, she'd had all the time in the world to do something about things before this, and she was regretting her decision to listen to him. But now she _could_ turn the tides and help him start getting better, and with moderate trembling in her hands she opened the cough syrup and poured what looked to be a correct dose, setting the bottle to the side so that she could use both hands to get him to take it.

The first thing she noticed when she got closer to him was that he was radiating uncomfortable heat off of his entire body, even through the blankets, and so as she was putting the medicine to his lips (which he reluctantly sipped, gagging and coughing as he did), she touched his forehead with the back of her hand. "You're really, and I mean _really_, warm," she pointed out, feeling his burning skin against her hand. "How are you still under that blanket?"

"Warm?" he repeated, once he'd stopped coughing from the medicine. "I'm freezing, Kaede, I don't know what you're talking about." Now she had known that he was sicker than she should have let him get, but she hadn't been aware that he'd become feverish, and now that she knew that seemed to be the case, his insistence on not getting help felt more like delusions than what he'd really wanted. She went to check to see if she had a thermometer handy, and when she found one in her cabinet unopened in its box she thanked her lucky stars, before taking it back to him, not letting him try to convince her that he wasn't sick any longer. If he was as warm as he felt, then she'd let things go on for far too long.

He initially refused to let her stick the cold plastic in his mouth, but her pleading eyes and her low whine made him give in to her demand, and while she watched the number on its screen tick up rapidly all he could do was see the fear in her eyes grow. When it beeped once, letting them both know its reading was finished, she yanked it from under his tongue and stared at it in disbelief, before setting it down next to the box of cough syrup and collapsing against him on the couch. "I never should have let you tell me you were going to be okay," she said, choking back what was undoubtedly a sob that he didn't understand the reason for. "You're going to die and it's going to be my fault and I—"

"Kaede, please, stop it, I'm going to be fine!" Shuichi pushed out those words as loudly as he could manage, but the force of doing so was enough to set him off on another round of coughing, during which Kaede got up and started wringing her hands wildly in front of her, clearly anxious about something. It wasn't until he'd stopped coughing that he could get her attention again, and when he finally got her looking in his direction once more her face was beginning to get stained with the silent tears she was letting herself cry. "You're being really dramatic about a little cold."

"A little cold? Since when does someone have a little cold if they're running a 39-degree fever? I…I can't handle this by myself, you're going to die if I keep trying to take care of you because I haven't done enough to help yet!" Her panic was almost tangible, but there was something about hearing just how bad things were that made Shuichi feel as if he was unable to get up from where he was laying. He wasn't sure if he knew how to respond to that, until she added on, "I'm going to have to call someone. I bet Kirumi will know just what to do if I asked her to come over and help, and if she's not available, then Maki's probably just as good at knowing quick fixes for being sick."

"Do not call either of them." It was incredibly difficult to sound serious when his voice was scratchy and he was wheezing with every few words, but he didn't want Kaede's panic to drag anyone else into the situation he'd caused in his attempt to not be anyone's burden. "They have enough things to focus on that they don't need to worry about someone who's let themselves get a bit sick. You can help me, I'm sure of it."

"I haven't helped you yet, have I?"

He blinked a few times, his eyelids feeling warm every time they closed. "You did get me to take medicine for the first time all week. I'm sure if you can keep that up, I'll get better in no time." He wasn't sure if what he was saying was true, but he didn't want to alarm Kaede more than she already was. If she was too worried, she wasn't going to be able to bring herself to do anything, and that would make things worse for them both. After another coughing spell, he tried to sit up but found himself too weak to do much more than wiggle around, and so he relegated himself to having to throw ideas at her instead. "Look up what else you can give me in addition to what you already did. I think…usually the most important thing is bringing the fever down."

It took a couple moments for Kaede to know what to do, and soon she was on her phone, flipping through pages upon pages of search results pertaining to what Shuichi had told her to do. She ended up having to leave her house to make another run to the drugstore, picking up several more medicines that she'd read would be useful in the current situation, as well as some sports drinks to give nutrients where they were needed. She'd never quite run home as fast as she did that night, her arms carrying her bags full of things for her dear boyfriend, and he was exactly where she'd left him when she got back.

That night was long as she spent her time caring for him, almost obsessively checking the time and his temperature to see what she could do next. She was counting down the minutes to when she could offer him another dose of something, or a sip of one of the drinks she'd bought, and the one time he even suggested that he was hungry she was getting him a spoonful of the soup that had gotten cold but still smelled delicious. Nothing seemed to be working, but she was determined that she was going to make a difference and get him back to normal in no time at all, and doing so required focus and dedication to the cause.

By the time the morning sun was rising over the horizon, he'd fallen asleep with her resting her head on his chest, almost as if she was trying to listen to his breathing (which was hard through the blanket and over the sound of the humidifier still chugging along) and had been taken away by her exhaustion in the process. They slept like that for a handful of hours, not long enough for either of them to really feel rested when they awoke, but enough to keep them going. He was still feverish, not nearly as he had been before but still much warmer than he should have been, and so Kaede's precise and intentional treatment plan continued as if there'd never been any interruption at all.

By the time his fever finally broke—at least a full day after she'd first discovered it, and there was no telling how long he'd been suffering before that—he was completely drenched in sweat, and the blanket he'd refused to get rid of felt slightly soggy to the touch. He was slightly ashamed at how disgusting things had gotten, but with a tired smile she told him, "It could be worse, you could've thrown up on it or something. I can handle a little sweat, if it means you're done almost dying on me."

"No promises," he replied with a smile, his face still pale but looking much livelier than it had before. "I can't guarantee that it's not going to happen again and…" He trailed off as he coughed once more, still sounding horrible but nowhere near as bad as he had during the worst of it. "I've still got that to deal with."

"It'll go away in time, I bet." There was a sense of accomplishment that Kaede felt for what she'd managed to make happen, knowing that things would have been much worse if she hadn't stepped in when she had. "For now, let's get you a nice shower and get you cleaned up, yeah? Then you can have some clean clothes and rest somewhere that isn't the couch."

He seemed shocked at the very last part of her statement, stammering, "Y-you mean, you're going to let me, uh, sleep with you? While I'm still sick?"

She shrugged, before offering him a hand to get him up off of the couch, her smile matching his in radiance by the time he was back to his feet. "I've been taking care of you, if I'm going to get sick there's no stopping it at this point. Why not just accept the inevitable and share a bed with you on top of sharing all these germs?"

Her positive attitude towards things was contagious, but unfortunately so was whatever nasty bug had rendered Shuichi so sick for that week, and within a few days she was being kicked down by it; this time, insisting that no help was needed was not an option, and he was plenty ready to give his girlfriend the same care she'd given him. And once they were both completely healthy, not a cough to be heard in the home, they were able to resume their normal, everyday lives, complete with affection and closeness that had been sorely missed while they'd been feeling under the weather.

* * *

**A/N: This is my first time writing actual sickfic, as weird as that feels! It was for a gift exchange and I'm always up for trying new things!**


End file.
